Ethan opened his mouth, and Chloe cut him off with a quick laugh, holding up her hands. “No! It’s okay! I get it. It’s a secret.”
Another expression of discomfort crossed Ethan’s face. Chloe was beginning to wonder if maybe he had an acute case of indigestion.
That would certainly explain the attitude….
“No, it’s not a secret, and there’s no legal reason I can’t explain it,” Ethan finally came out with. “It’s more just… personal reasons.”
“Oh. Okay,” Chloe said, a little chastened. Sure, Ethan might have had an attitude, but she did feel just theslightestbit bad now for prying into something personal, no matter how much fun it was to make him make ‘I need antacid and I need it now’faces. “Well… if youdowant some help finding what you’relooking for, I don’t have much on for the rest of the day. Just walking, like I said.”
Her heart skipped a little at the possibility of spending the day with him – she’d originally just offered to walk him here, but she was weirdly invested in this now.
“Just… helping me find the bookstore would be fine for now,” Ethan said after a moment. He glanced at her, his lips twisting, as if he was trying to figure out what to say next. Maybe they didn’t do small talk at slick, big-city law firms. “So did you grow up here in Girdwood Springs?” he finally asked.
“Me? Oh, no. I’m new in town. I literally just bought the vet practice,” Chloe said. “But I’ve been here a few days. The place is so small it’s not like you need much longer than that to learn your way around. In fact –” She broke off, glancing around. Finally, she felt like she was getting her bearings. “– There’s the bookshop right over there.”
Ethan glanced at the shop, his face softening a little. “Thanks,” he said, before looking back at her. “So I guess if you’re new in town too, you wouldn’t really know much about the history of Girdwood Springs, or anything like that.”
“Nope. Sorry. Not a thing,” Chloe told him, shaking her head. “I just came up here to check it out when I heard the clinic was for sale, spent a little time looking around, and then ran back home to see whether I could convince the bank to loan me the money to buy it. It’s a beautiful town.”
“I guess so?” Ethan sounded like he’d never really thought about it. But Chloe couldn’t help but notice he was looking around now, perhaps noticing the gorgeous fall colors and the brilliant blue of the sky for the first time – not to mention all the cute little shops they were walking past, with gorgeous displays in the front windows, brightly colored awnings over the sidewalks, and the crisp, fresh mountain air all around them.
“Itispretty,” he said thoughtfully after a moment. “I’ve never really been the outdoorsy type. I don’t come out to places like this very often.”
“Oh, me neither, but it was always a dream of mine,” Chloe said before she could stop herself. Everything still seemed like it wasn’t quite real – she couldn’t believe Girdwood Springs would really be her home from now on. “And to have my own vet clinic too – I never really thought it would happen. But here I am – well, I mean, not that I’ve actually properly opened the clinic yet, or made any friends here, or –”
“If you’re as good with all your patients as you were with Bella, then I’m sure the people will be happy to have you here, and your clinic will be thriving in no time,” Ethan said, cutting her off bluntly – not like he was trying to pay her a compliment, but like he was stating a rather obvious fact that she should have been able to figure out by herself.
Wow,Chloe thought, blinking.Even when this guy’s saying something that’s technically nice, he’s still somehow rude. I knew there had to be something to counterbalance the unbelievable hotness. Hotandnice? Dream on!
“Anyway, since we’re here, we should probably go inside,” Ethan said, gesturing at the building.
Chloe tried not to grimace – he was right, of course, but that only made it more annoying.
“Right. Sure,” she said, gritting her teeth in what was probably the world’s most tense smile.
Turning away, Chloe pushed open the wooden door, setting a tiny bell tinkling. She stepped inside… and could barely restrain her gasp.
On the one hand, she shouldn’t have been surprised that a lovely old building would have a lovely old interior. On the other hand, though, it was justsolovely that it took her breath away.
The store was… notdark, exactly. That was the wrong word for it. But there were definitely no bright lights here – any illumination came from the front windows, and from the vast array of lamps placed on any available surface.
Tall lamps, short lamps, skinny lamps, round lamps. Lamps that cast multicolored patterns through stained glass. Lamps that glowed softly behind embroidered designs. Lamps that were perched so precariously that Chloe thought the only way they could possibly avoid toppling over and being smashed on the ground was through pure magic.
Beyond that, there were pictures on the walls – not just paintings, but collages, etchings, charcoal sketches, and other things she wasn’t quite sure she could identify – and beautiful old pieces of furniture, with curling wooden feet and arms and plush velvet cushions, tucked away in every conceivable corner. Some sort of delicious herbal scent wafted gently through the air, just enough to tease the senses without being overpowering, while below that was the smoky hint of a distant fireplace, with its promise of warm toes and hypnotically flickering flames.
But all of that, of course, was playing second fiddle to all the books.
Books!
Really, there were…quite a lotof books. Some looked modern, with brightly colored covers, while others looked very, very old, bound in leather and sealed with coppery clasps. Suddenly, the idea of finding an answer to Ethan’s mysterious question in this place didn’t seem quite so far-fetched.
Chloe couldn’t even tell just how large the store was, as the warren of shelves and comfy chairs looked like it could quite possibly stretch on into eternity. Honestly, she wouldn’t have been surprised if a minotaur had suddenly popped out from its depths!
The effect was warm and comforting, and Chloe – who didn’t really consider herself a book lover in the usual sense, having spent far too many late nights poring over veterinary texts while trying to force her eyelids to stay open – had to admit that even she would love nothing more than to curl up in front of the fire in one of the enormous armchairs with a mug of hot cocoa, and spend the afternoon idly flicking through some ancient tome.
Really, there was no other word for the place butcozy. The whole store felt like it had been designed to make anyone who entered it feel like they were bobbing about on warm waves of contentment.
Chloe thought that it was probably a good thing that she loved her job so much, otherwise she might be tempted to pivot into becoming a bookseller… or at least someone who spent their days lounging around in adorable little bookstores – which, she had to admit, was something that it might be difficult to make a living out of.
